Best BBQ Book(s) - What is your "Bible"?


 
I love reading cook books, but never expect anything, (with the exception of Julia Child's Kitchen,) to be a bible. My favourite Q books are ray Lampe's Big-Time BBQ, the Jamison's Smoke & Spice, and Mills' Peace Love & Barbecue. (Not in any order.)

All these and several others are grist for the mill, and i enjoy flipping through them and getting new ideas, and refreshing old ones.

The thing with cook books, is not to follow them, but to hear them.
 
The section on rubs from Raichlen's book "Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades". Don't keep it forever. Just read it a few times until you understand the ratio he talks about on spices for rubs.

This board. As long as you are using a WSM, this is the cooking technique to follow.

For grilling, Rainchlen's The Barbecue Bible. Maybe Smoke & Spice.

Books on meat like River Cottage Meat book or the others. Basically these books will protect you from buying the wrong cut of meat.

I learned a LOT when I helped butcher my first cow and first pig. I can "see" what the butchers do and ... well I can tell when they are lazy on trimming or when meat looks wrong.
 
I have gotten more good information from this board than any book i have read. I find myself going back to a book titled "holy smoke" it is a book about North Carolina Q. I also recently purchased Dinosaur BBQ on Kindle and we have tried 3 recipes so far & all 3 are now staples in our household.
 
Originally posted by James Harvey:
If there were a BBQ bible, what would it be?
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Not surprisingly, there is not going to be one answer anytime soon which is a good thing. I figure that we go through various seasons as we learn with certain books and culinary resources being more appropriate for one season than another. Differences in learning styles mixes this up even more.

One "tension" I see in resources, and how people perceive them, is that there are those who originate from classical culinary training (e.g. Steve Raichlen trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris) and those who are more self-taught, and perhaps may not mix culinary styles as much.

While I rely on it less these days, Steve Raichlen's How to Grill got me started. Increasingly I find myself gleaning information from this excellent forum, realizing that this isn't rocket science, that I don't need to have a complex recipe with lots of ingredients to make a good result, that my learning first and foremost is going to be experientialy messing up in front of a life fire, etc.
 
Any source I can find. Having spent the first 30 years I grilled without reading a darn thing and just learning from error, I now will read most any book on BBQ, Grilling, smoking..whatever. Took first place with baby backs out of a Williams and Sonoma BBQ book with a bit of "Emeril Live" modifications. I guess I trend to glean information from a lot of sources then sort of mind meld it into my own. When you can usually eat your mistakes its easy., but I will say Weber has producerd some outstanding books, especiallyt for either a novice or a "new" meat I have not done before.
For Charcuterie,(I hate Nitrates, Nitrites) I have found Julia Childs for Corned Beef (aka PAstrami) and have had absolute raves over her dry cure . When combined with my she-wolfs corned beef cooking technique it is killer.
And who is this Gary Wiviott? Glad I never heard of him. With his attitude he will never make a dime off me.
 
The site is populated by engineers who tend to put toomuch emphasis on things like time charts and ambient temperature. My Program cares about none of that. Start the fire, put the meat in the cooker, and leave it the hell alone. Now, go take that **** thermometer out of the vent. Not only is the thermometer blocking
airflow,which causes smoldering (which leads to creosote-flavored food), but these thermometers
are meant to be inserted in food. They don’t measure the air temperature in your cooker, so
you’ll never get an accurate reading. Repeat after me: we don’t care about no stinking temperature.
Remember, you’re learning to read fires and meat, not thermometers.
Also, do not reuse charcoal. Ever. Charcoal is an absorbent. It drinksmoisture and odor from
the air, which is why it’s often used as a filter. Moist charcoal cooks slow and transfers off flavors
to your food. And letme guess: you used regular briquettes instead of natural lump charcoal? Do
I have to remind you that briquettes contain a witch’s brew of chemicals, while lump charcoal is
a natural product?
Gary Wiviott
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Ok, so we shouldn't care about temps but we should care about a wire in our vent and whether the charcoal absorbed a bad smell? I'm fine with a program designed for newbies that reduces things they need to worry about, but what's with adding a bunch more? He's replacing nonsense with nonsense, just to sell a book.

Bbq cookbooks only provide inspiration. Rarely are they informative (certainly for specific cookers) on technique. I have not read the Modernist Cuisine, but IMO it sounds like the first book that really lays out the processes behind bbq.
 
Regarding Wiviott's Book, Low and Slow:

The author's apparent dogmatic attitude aside, I do see a point to his methodology. The dynamics of cooking on any grill/smoker is a multivariable problem, if you will, and the combination of all our little choices can create widely varying results for a beginner (or even intermediate user) who may not know how to adjust to changes arising from all these variables.

As someone who has only just begun to explore smoking on a Weber kettle grill, and as one who does have the "engineer mindset," I do see the appeal to walk through a structured course-format of lessons which build upon each other. I'm gong to check it out from the library.
 
I have several favorites:

Paul Kirk's Championship BBQ and his Championship BBQ Sauces and Rubs
Weber's Charcoal Grilling
 
Well, here's my take, as it is: I use Raichlen's "Sauces, Rubs and Marinades" A-LOT (though I modify to go no salt as my husband has high blood preassure). Then this site, then Betty Crocker/Weber. I have to say I'm more of a fly-by-the-pants BBQ'r/Griller (which I think all of us are). The results are good, so I'm quite happy with what I have used, and will get inspiration where it turns up (Food Network, anyone??).
 
My first book was S&S. Good overview, but I now find it not nitty-gritty enough. (Whatever that means.)

I recently was at a friend's weekend place where I found Ray Lampe's 2005 Big-Time BBQ book. LOVED it. Read cover-to-cover. Have bought two of his books in last month.
 
The last BBQ book I purchased was Lampe's. Very good book and I've used it as a reference a couple of times. Took it with me to Lakeland this last year and he signed it for me. I would have loved to talk with him some more but it was getting close to turn-ins.

I also bought Wiviott's book a long time ago. I tried his method one time and immediately realized that I wasn't learning anything. His method is to simply cook by rote. Yeah, that's useful.....not. Don't have that book anymore.

Now I look through the recipes here, the Bretheren forums, Lampe, Raichlen, variations of traditional stuff (Betty Crocker, Julia Child), portions of stuff that I pick up at competitions, and my own experiments.

I stay away from stuff shown or posted on FoodTV or anything Bobby Flay.

Russ
 
I also bought Wiviott's book a long time ago. I tried his method one time and immediately realized that I wasn't learning anything. His method is to simply cook by rote. Yeah, that's useful.....not. Don't have that book anymore.
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that's an interesting take. I'm really interested in Wiviott, in case anyone hasn't noticed. I'm probably more like you in that I need to have justification for doing something or I'm not going to do it. I guess there's people out there that need to be told what to do. I need to be told why to do it.

here's my exchange with wiviott. He didn't really answer my question, instead he decided to explain his method, which doesn't mention anything about the why's, just the how's.

or anything Bobby Flay.
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IMO, Flay's recipes are solid and I like his approach. He's one of several chefs responsible for elevating native American ingredients to high end cooking. just my 2 cents worth
 
Alright,I have THE best cook book for us men,it's called A Man,A Can,A Plan 100 great guy meals. I found this while going through all the cook books we have scattered about. Even though I rarely look through a cook book any more because our daughter does almost all indoor cooking, we'll still pick one up if it's cheap enough and looks interesting. It actually has some recipes that need a grill for cooking.
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I bought my brother GRILLING FOR DUMBIES (not kidding), and, boy, did he need it.

Having said that, I have at least 15 different "BBQ" books, including most mentioned here. The one I consider my "bible" would be SMOKE AND SPICE.

Regards,
 
Thanks for the great responses all. I enjoy reading BBQ books, not so much for the recipes but more for the stories and tips.
I have access to Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book and am about to start it. I'm looking for Smoke & Spice next. We have a great library sytem here in Toronto.

JDH
 
I've been doing barbecue for a long time, but infrequently by the standards of most of you, I suspect. Smoke and Spice was an invaluable book back before so much stuff was on the Internet, and it is still a really good reference/overview for someone just getting into it. A slightly modified version of Wild Willy's rub is my go-to even though I've tried many others. But now that I have a WSM and have found this site, I'm having no problems finding anything I need.
 
Originally posted by James Harvey:
Thanks guys. Appreciative of the above, I'm curious as to people's choice for best book/media. This forum is definitely more informative and dynamic than any text could ever be but I wonder what everyone considers a "must have" regadless of era.

Example, Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".

JDH
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---"Fire and Smoke" by Maggie Waldron(1978) and "Whatcha Need to Know TO BARBEQUE Like a Pro"(2001) by Ron Lutz.

Rick
 
The Weber cookbooks are good starter books, especially the Big Book and Charcoal. They can be a little repetitive. This site I am learning is really beyond any book. Trouble is, unlike a book you will get multiple and sometimes divergent opinions at the same time. Next thing you know, you are being forced to think. Just look up something like water in the water pan. BBQ is great fun!
 
Flay's recipes are solid and I like his approach. He's one of several chefs responsible for elevating native American ingredients
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Agreed.

I have never seen him on television (I loathe food/cooking shows - but I have heard some stories) but his recipes show good flavor insight (unlike some others noted above) and actual talent.
 
Raichlen's "How to Grill" got me started and I constantly refer back to it (still consider myself an absolute beginner). Purviance's "Charcoal Grilling" is my other go-to book. I like the fact that it's Weber-specific.

The other big "Aha" moment for me was taking a beginner's class offered by the California BBQ association. After that class I knew exactly what I wanted to cook and the equipment I needed. I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what this forum has, but have already incorporated the tips and techniques I've run across.

That pdf of the Harry Soo discussion just might become my new BBQ Tao...

Steve
18.5"WSM 22.5"OTG Lodge Sportsman
 
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